A Sister Grimm
by mrsProbie
Summary: Luna has been seeing things that no one else does - but she isn't mad. Her father introduces her to the legend of Grimms, and her perspective on her mystery creatures shifts.


The Department of Mysteries was hellish. Luna had anticipated a frenzy, she had intellectually anticipated hurting people who were trying to hurt her and her friends, but she was in no way prepared for the harsh reality of a _battle._ She felt almost dissociative going through the motions of spell after spell, immobilizing and hexing and then eventually cursing like her life depended on it - she supposed her life _did_ depend on it.

And then suddenly she was running because her life depended on it. She ran with the Weasleys, Ron raving and probably Confunded and Ginny limping and lagging behind, and they found themselves in a long room containing a tank of what might have been brains... with tentacles? There was a large board on one of the short walls, covered in scrawls in another language, maybe German.

When Harry and Neville joined them, an unconscious Hermione in tow, the panic began to catch up with her. Not even the novelty of the planets hanging in the air around them could distract her from the horrible loud heavy beating in her chest. They had stayed still too long, and without the constant barrage of spells her conscious mind was beginning to stray into a minefield of anxiety; Hermione could have died, they _all_ could have died - and then there were Death Eaters again, the door blasted in by a manic Bellatrix Lestrange, her laugh high and piercing and something that Luna knew she would never forget.

Harry fled, and the Death Eaters followed closely, in turn followed by the band of teengers, save Ginny, who stayed behind to guard Hermione. They found themselves in a cavernous chamber empty save a small arch. There was a black curtain that was billowing in a wind that Luna could not feel in the stuffy room, and she was unable to look away from it - and then she was half-stunned, unable to move but dimly conscious of the world around her.

Professor Dumbledore arrived with a group of serious-looking adults in tow, including Professor Lupin. Her favorite professor was dueling a woman who looked like she imagined an Inferi might - her skin was so decayed that she looked like a walking corpse, her hair as gray as her skin, and her teeth were black and malformed, from what Luna could see at her distance. Later, she would wonder what kind of magic could cause that to happen to a person; had the woman consumed unicorn blood? Was there another blood magic involved?

Slowly, despite clinging to the thread of this thought, she became less aware of the world around her, until finally she awoke to Professor Lupin standing over her with his wand. She was glad that he had made it out of his battle with the strange witch-creature-woman in one piece.

In the hospital wing at Hogwarts, Luna asked if any of the others knew what the witch-creature really was. "The woman fighting Professor Lupin, she was like an Inferi, but conscious, and wand-wielding - what kind of creature is capable of that?"

Neville gave her a strange look. "The one fighting Lupin? She looked normal enough to me." Did he think it was just a particularly ugly witch, and he was too polite to say so? Luna was looking for an honest discussion, not gossip around a hospital bed.

"I don't - did you not see her skin? Her teeth?" She didn't want to be rude, but she was looking for _some_ kind of answer.

After a terse discussion, it was clear that Neville thought Hermione was right - the older girl told her it was probably a hallucination under stress, her mind turning the enemy into something even scarier. Hermione urged her to put it to the back of her mind and focus on all aspects of her recovery.

Obviously, Luna knew that it was _not_ a hallucination. She didn't know what it was, but it had been real.

When it was time to go home, she was quiet on the train, poring over her father's latest issue of the Quibbler. The piece she'd written on the furthering of the Losengers in St. Mungo's, and the implications for non-human patients, was the second article in the magazine, a better spot than she'd ever earned before.

Once she finally got off the train, she hugged her father even tighter for it.

They got home, and the Rook was silent save the clinking of porcelain as she went about making tea. Her father had mostly been staring into space, beyond space; it was not Wrackspurts, she knew. Occasionally, he would snap his gaze to her for a moment, and she felt that he was realizing how close he had come to losing her. She knew that she could not understand the depth of any parent's feelings, but she knew that he was afraid.

She didn't blame him.

She set a cerulean cup of black tea in front of him, and he jerked out of his trance. Even as he took a first sip, she saw his eyes begin to dim again. Now was as good a time as ever to ask about the humanoid creature - if nothing else, it would distract him.

"Daddy?"

He jerked again, spilling tea over the edge of the cup and onto his hand. He swore softly before wiping it on the lap of his robes. "Yes, my moon?"

"I discovered a creature, I think," she said calmly.

He gave her an odd look while stirring another full tablespoon of sugar into the little cup. "You think that you did?"

"Well, my friends think that it was a person," she explained. "It _wasn't_. It was… humanoid, like an Inferi, but she - it was casting spells. It could do magic."

Suddenly he was showing more emotion than he had since she arrived - he looked almost hopeful, eyes wide with excitement and mouth gaping for a second too long. "Where did you see such a thing?"

"I don't remember," she hedged, shifting her gaze to her cup.

He set his spoon down on his saucer with purpose, drawing her eyes back up and then back to his, which were twinkling with something that she did not recognize. "I doubt that, Luna."

She held his gaze, gauging whether he was going to push this. She felt quickly that her father was going to hold his end of this at least as long as she was willing to.

"I saw it at the Ministry." He gestured for her to go on. "Its skin was grey, like a corpse might be - that's why at first I thought it was an Inferi."

"Its teeth? Were they rotted?" he demanded.

She realized that he _had_ heard of this creature, and began to reply, "Yes, and -"

He gasped as he took her hand, his own trembling with what could have been anxiety or excitement.

He pulled her up from the table and down the hallway, into his bedroom. It smelled like he did - of patchouli and something else that she could only identify as herbal. "Alright," he muttered, and she followed him to his desk, interest piquing as he knelt and pulled it entirely away from the wall. He hummed as he felt around the space behind it, oddly water stained for its location, and made a soft _aha!_ when he found what he was looking for. He pressed his palm against one of the smaller stains and murmured a spell that she couldn't quite hear.

A section of the wall disappeared, revealing a small recessed shelf containing books that looked to be very old. Her father ran the tips of his fingers along the bindings, then pulled two out and into his arms before pressing his hand against the wall next to the alcove, triggering the wall to appear again.

He was smiling _madly_ when he stood back up, and he ushered her quickly back into the kitchen. He set the books down with a respectful gentleness, then moved their teacups away to the sink before sitting down himself.

He looked at her seat and only then seemed to realize that she was still in the arch of the hallway. "Sit," he said plainly, and she crossed the room slowly to do so. Her father was practically buzzing in excitement, and she wished a little that she still had her cup of tea.

"Luna," he said excitedly, clearly trying and failing to keep the thrill out of his voice. "There is a legend - a story of a type of wizard called a _Grimm_. These people are gifted with an ability to see things beyond what normal wizards see. These journals," he continued, gripping one so tightly that his knuckles were white, "are from my great-grandfather, Athamas Lovegood. He was a farmhand with his father until he was thirteen years old, and then he seems to have become a… creature-hunter. His father didn't really approve," he said ruefully. "I found these journals in my father's study when I was a boy, and they are what inspired me to dedicate myself to finding these creatures. My father thought his father mad, but I knew, somehow I _knew_ that he wasn't mad."

Luna tried to take this all in, but it was a bit overwhelming, even for her more broad-minded sensibilities.

Her father set the book back down, finally realizing that he was gripping it dangerously tight. "Have you ever seen something before that you friends couldn't?" he tried. "Really seen something odd? Not a Thestral, something beyond anything you've ever read?"

Her mind slipped to a few incidents from the past year and a half or so. The burnt, devil-like figure she had seen peering from a broken hand mirror she found in a corner of a questionable shop in Diagon, a figure with a black skull and green eyes. The shopkeeper had been unnerved when she'd asked about it, and so she let it go. It wasn't as though she'd intended to purchase it - there was something _unsettling_ about that face.

She'd just assumed that nobody she'd talked to about it paid as close attention to the world around them as she did.

He must have seen her thoughtful expression, because something encouraged him to continue with renewed enthusiasm. "I always believed that what he saw was real, I just didn't realize… Luna, he was a Grimm!" he exclaimed, grabbing her hands and holding them tightly in his own. "I don't know how I never put it together - Luna, _you_ are a Grimm!"

Her mind spun, trying to at all understand the ramifications of this. "What does that mean? How does this work?" she continued, not really allowing him a chance to reply. "Why didn't I know about it before?"

It seemed that Athamas hadn't developed the ability until he was thirteen. Her father reasoned that it could just be something that wizards grew into.

"I need to go think," Luna said stiltedly. "All of this - I'll be in my room."

"Take the journals," her father said, sliding them across the table to her. "Read some if you want. It might help."

She hadn't planned to do it. Really she'd planned to paint over her feelings about the entire thing, figuratively and maybe literally if she found the right canvas, but she spent most of her evening poring over the journals. There were things she recognized - a Hexenbiest, the thing she had seen at the Ministry, and Zerstörer, the demonic figure she had seen in that broken mirror, something which gave her chills now, knowing how close she had been to something so incredibly dangerous without even realizing it. She wondered if it was still in that shop, or if someone had bought it.

There were also things that she didn't recognize: there seemed to be another version of the lycanthropes that she was familiar with, a face reminiscent of a Thestral on a Nuckelavee, something called a Murciélago that had the same fatal shriek as banshees, possibly related creatures. It was terribly interesting, and despite her misgivings, she did see how these journals could have inspired her father to go the direction he had in life.

The next day over a pile of bacon as tall as her teacup, he asked if she would like to go to Diagon Alley and find her own journal. Having slept on it, and feeling significantly more open to the idea of her new ability, her answer was a resounding "Yes!"

Flourish & Blotts had a huge selection of journals and diaries and notepads and anything else a person could dream of recording their thoughts in or on. Luna and her father practically bounced around the shop, showing each other beautiful bound books with parchment pages and aluminium covers or gilded edges and leather covers or just absolutely perfect _everythings_. As he must have pointed out a dozen times: "You're going to have this until it's full, and who knows how long that will take? You'll want something you won't get sick of looking at!"

When she returned to Hogwarts, she chose not to bring Athamas's journals, just in case. She did bring her own journal, intent on documenting everything she came across that only she could see. Over the school year she wrote down every odd thing that only she noticed, sketched them the way that Athamas had. It was interesting, the stylistic differences - where he had focused on shading, she focused on the shape. Had he been an artist, too? Additionally, as she learned about other magical creatures, she would write about the connections she felt they might have to the Wesen, Athamas's word for the creatures, noted in the old journals. The banshees and the Murciélago, Inferi and Zombies, everything she could draw lines to and from.

When she came home - at Christmas, again at Easter, and again for the summer hols - she would look over Athamas's work in more detail and find the overlap in their observations. At Christmas, she'd added an index at the back of her own journal, hoping that it would help organise the slowly growing mess.

Over the course of the year of true war, Luna had the privilege of seeing many new Wesen up close and in-person. Of course, all of the journals, hers included, were in a Muggle fireproof safe hidden behind a water stain in the Rook, so she had to pull all of Athamas's old descriptions from memory to reason through what she was seeing. She hoped that she could remember the details later. Sometimes, mentally reciting her discoveries or his notes was all that kept her grounded during her time in Malfoy Manor.

Fenrir Greyback was not just a werewolf - he was a Schakal, explaining his mythic reputation for eating human flesh outside of his wolf form.

A fellow prisoner was a very nervous Eisbiber named Hubble. The moment they made eye contact, he cringed back and began begging her not to kill him. She was as unsettled as Dean Thomas, but Mr. Ollivander had a knowing glint to his eye. In the end, she learned that Wesen could see themselves reflected in a darkness in her eyes, and they would know on eye contact that she was a Grimm. Many of them would be very afraid. Many of them would become violent, and she was grateful that she had found out from a - frankly - quite cowardly Wesen.

She was happy that Bill Weasley had not asked any questions when she asked for as much paper as he could spare. While recovering from her time under the Cruciatus, Hermione had a harder time moving than any of the others, resulting in her spending more time sitting than the others. She often sat at the kitchen table, observing Luna's drawing and writing closely. She seemed to sense the shift that Luna was feeling herself, a deeper focus, even if Hermione didn't necessarily know the source.

"You really th- you really see these things, don't you?" Hermione finally asked, several days into their stay. She was curled up on a plush armchair, covered in a luxe blanket courtesy of Fleur. Luna had been working from the floor at the little coffee table in the Shell Cottage living room for over an hour, wondering when Hermione was going to speak up. The previous hour had been spent in silence, the girls not speaking, only occasionally sipping their pumpkin juice, laced with rum despite the midday hour.

Luna looked up at the older girl. Woman, now, she supposed. "Yes," she said simply. Then she drank the last of her glass, tossing it back with a flourish. She could have told Hermione about her great-grandfather seeing the same creatures, asked about shared delusions across time, and brought her around to the idea of magic beyond the norm. She didn't.

When the memorial was unveiled at the edge of Hogwarts property, Luna stayed at the back of the crowd. Many people, of all walks of life, had come to watch the ceremony. It was all a little overwhelming still, even these months later. The grounds still held the evidence of battle. It was difficult to envision coming back to school to finish, and she knew that she wouldn't. She didn't need NEWTs where she was going.

Neville was also hiding near the back of the crowd, looking as though he might be sick. She took him by the wrist and steered him away from the ceremony. They walked toward the edge of the Forbidden Forest, then headed east, free of fear of the creatures within. Every group of beings in the area had lost friends and brothers, and this was a solemn time for all. They didn't speak, and she eventually let go of his wrist.

As they came to the Whomping Willow, she slowed to a stop. While she walked towards the tree, careful not to bother it by getting too far into its hanging branches, Neville hung back, just a little out of reach. "What are you doing?" he called.

"There are faces carved here," Luna called back, squinting at the bark of its trunk, only barely able to make them out. "Is this part of the memorial? It seems too interesting to be part of it." She paused. "And a little too unsettling, I suppose. Come here!"

Neville carefully crept towards her, jumping a bit every time he heard the crack of a stick under his feet. He squinted over to the tree trunk as well. "I don't see anything. Where am I supposed to be looking?"

Of course. "I must have been imagining things," she said lightly.

He looked at her incredulously. "You? Imagining things? You never 'imagine things!'"

She looked at him archly, as though he was being absurd. "Well, there's a first time for everything, isn't there?" She clapped her hands resolutely. "Now, I think it's been about long enough. We should be getting back to the others, or they'll worry."

He nodded tiredly. "Hannah Abbott's been latched on every time she sees me. Made the mistake of having a conversation with her at the Leaky Cauldron - she's been helping Tom out and I thought I'd be nice and catch up. We've been chatting a lot since, but…" She got the idea that Neville was a little overwhelmed by the go-getter young woman. Hannah Abbott had always worked hard to get what she wanted, and it seemed she wanted Neville. "If she realizes I'm not there, Merlin knows how quickly she'll raise the alarm." He scowled. "Wish no one knew I killed that stupid snake."

She laughed lightly. "We all want to escape our circumstances, don't we?"

Sure enough, when they got back to the western grounds, Hannah Abbott was none-too-subtly making her way through the crowd, craning to find Neville. When she caught him, she rushed over, and he pasted on a smile.

"Where were you?" she demanded. "I thought you were-"

"Short version," he cut her off, "not dead."

"Well," she said dubiously, "at least let me get some hot cocoa into you. You look miserable."

Luna giggled at the look that Neville threw her over his shoulder as Hannah tugged him away. She hoped he had fun in Hogsmeade; she had a feeling they would get along better than he thought.

The longer that Luna thought on it, the more certain she was that she was making the right decision not to come back to Hogwarts in the fall. It was a beautiful place, but with all three journals back, she was ready for something more. Thinking of the Weasley twins flying out of the Great Hall, she cheered herself. Maybe she could buy a broomstick before she set off on her trip; it could come in handy.

She was excited to be able to take the time to study the journals properly and to make all of the leaps and connections and discoveries that her heart and mind could manage. She was hoping to parlay her upcoming short jaunt on the island into a long-term expedition including the continent. She really needed to get to Czechia at some point - she'd heard of a magizoologist named Rolf Scamander who was focused on searching for folklore-inspiring creatures. Whether he was a Grimm or not, she had a feeling he would be able to point her in a useful direction.

* * *

Challenges and competitions, as usual:

 **HP QLFC Season 6 Round 11:** Chaser 2 - "Grimm", Optional prompts: #3 - (object) broken mirror; #6 - (quote) "We all want to escape our circumstances, don't we?" — Benedict Cumberbatch; #7 - (word) fatal

 **Through the Universe Challenge:** Caldera - (setting) Department of Mysteries

 **Board Games Challenge:** We the People - Write about a life-changing event.

 **Are You Crazy Enough? Challenge:** #185 - (drink) Rum

 **BBC Sherlock Challenge:** #29 - "Short version. Not dead."


End file.
